Columnists

Wherever I go, it seems as though a body of rumors precedes me. People talk. They judge. They don't necessarily have the facts, nor do they very often try to see things from my perspective. -more-

On July 29, 2021, President Joe Biden announced that federal workers and contractors will be required to attest they’ve been vaccinated against the coronavirus or else face mandatory masking, weekly testing, distancing. and other new rules. President Biden also said he is "asking the Defense Department to look into how and when they will add COVID-19 to the list of vaccinations our armed forces must get."

At this point in time, we don’t have the time to coax vaccine holdouts to get vaccinated. It might have been feasible back when the vaccines were first approved for emergency use by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). By now the vaccines’ safety and effectiveness have been proven again and again over time, yet resistance remains. And we continue to hear that persistent education about the vaccines’ importance will eventually overcome resistance. It hasn't. If the unvaccinated aren’t convinced by now about the lifesaving benefits of vaccination, they just haven’t been listening or are listening to the wrong sources. -more-

Street Art for the Sake of Clean Water

A talented team of artists and activists recently took the campaign against Big Carbon to the streets—specifically to the first block of Fresno Street to the south of Solano Avenue. This Albany intersection now sports a colorful two-lane proclamation of resistance to the Line 3 Pipeline.

If built, Line 3 would open North America's oil-stained floodgates to a daily surge of nearly a million barrels of Canadian tar sands. Line 3 would drive this toxic slurry all the way from Alberta to Wisconsin—across wild wetlands and the sacred treaty territory of the Anishinaabe peoples—before plowing through the headwaters of the Mississippi to a terminus on the shore of Lake Superior. And here's a Bonus Bonehead Blunder: Line 3 would be built by Enbridge, the firm responsible for the biggest inland oil spill in US history.

The Indigenous communities in the projected path of this costly and unnecessary project are waging a brave and determined nonviolent resistance to block the pipeline and protect their ancestral lands. They have succeeded in holding the project at bay for nearly five years.

For more details on this epic struggle, check out the Stop Line 3 link.

And, if you have a chance, take a stroll off Solano to check out the message that now adorns the pavement alongside the nearby Chase bank: "Defund Line 3: For the Love of Water." -more-